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Opinion: Guest Opinions

Housing is the solution for homelessness

By Rob Smoke

Posted:
07/13/2014 01:00:00 AM MDT

Municipal officials in cities across the United States, including Boulder, have long argued that they "do more" for the homeless than other municipalities. Indeed, any Boulder council meeting or study session where homelessness is a topic will include self-congratulatory proclamations regarding Boulder's commitment to "solving homelessness." At some point, simple observation trumps the PR-speak, and that appears to be much the case at present in Boulder — where the topic of homelessness has gained a profile by virtue of the deaths of five homeless individuals within a three-month span. There's also a continuing controversy regarding the rights of so-called "undesirables"-— a term generally applied to transient individuals who drink alcohol or use street drugs. Perhaps that's the real starting point.

Let's consider alcoholism. There are two dominant paradigms that seek to inform us when considering the situation of people who live "in the bottle." One paradigm says it's a matter of choice. People choose to drink. If choosing to drink leads to ruinous circumstances, so what? It's the person's own free will, and if their choice is offensive to a community they've chosen to occupy as homeless "transients" (who are drunk and possibly abusive), then it's their own fault and the best assistance might be a bus ticket.

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The second paradigm, which may be a step ahead in terms of it being informed by medical science, states that alcoholism is an illness. Yes, people make choices, but the craving for alcohol is non-volitional and signifies illness. Of course, by definition, illness is not a choice. Yet there's still a big problem: both the "choice" paradigm and the "illness" paradigm share something very significant. They both let society and government off the hook. More so with the "choice" option, but both tend to give governments a free ride. These are the same governments that are charged with regulating alcohol and have pretty much made it universally available. As a nation we allow alcohol industry television advertising that studies have shown significantly targets children. Furthermore, the same governments that say housing the homeless is too expensive, freely spend money on wars, hyper-aggressive law enforcement, corporate welfare and so on. Why do these items come first? Is it really somehow a "savings" to deny funds for housing — even a drunk person?

The results of government being "off the hook" — as demonstrated daily in Boulder as well as cities across the United States — is that as poverty worsens, so do issues of homelessness. Census and survey results vary, but it's still a given that urban homelessness has been far outpacing societal answers. Each day we read of new ordinances and new "rules" that, at best, cause homeless people to seek places where they can hide from the police. Meanwhile, the police, businesses and residents who sometimes want to help but at other times simply want the homeless "gone," simply never reach consensus. It's not a coincidence that the "going" of a homeless person, as we've seen several times recently in Boulder, is in fact going to one's death.

"Gone" is not a solution. Regardless of a person's sobriety or mental health — and regardless of whether we choose to hold people in a "ruined" state as worthy of respect and assistance — the homeless don't ever simply disappear. Chasing people is not helping; increasing criminal penalties and incarceration rates have not helped, and in point of fact, the only thing that truly has helped in any city has been... housing people.

Our elected city and county officials could reach an agreement to declare an emergency use for property that could be used for a "people's village" that might include space for either tents or "tiny homes." Perhaps a small and temporary solution — but still a sincere answer to a situation where homeless people are dying — often enough in public spaces most people take for granted as perfectly safe. Instead of judging people for their presumed "badness," let's first get past life-and-death circumstances. Let's house those in need and argue the merits of social Darwinism when we've at least lessened the sheer vulnerability of those who experience deep poverty.

I can remember Boulder when it would be a bit of a shock to hear that a woman died in a public park at night because...she had nowhere else to go. Let's overcome our convenient prejudices and step forward by developing at least a bare-bones answer for those whose mere survival is clearly often very much at risk. For info on homelessness and what people are doing about it, please visit http://nationalhomeless.org.

Rob Smoke is a former Commissioner of Human Relations for the City of Boulder.

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